Between Homelessness and Happiness: Meet Natia “The God”

Between Homelessness and Happiness: Meet Natia “The God”

July 31 2017 by Paley Martin

Natia Happy Maluia – also known as Natia and sometimes Natia “The God” – is an artist defined by contradictions.

“Well, my life sucks,” the Inglewood, California-bred rapper tells TIDAL. “You know that part in the movie where it’s like, ‘Oh my God,’ and then it becomes happy? That’s how my shit is.” Bleak as it may seem, Natia’s statement is less a cry for pity than a reality he’s learned to laugh off, a set of circumstances to swallow, shrug off and endure while smiling through the process. “Happy” is, after all, his middle name.

“I used to think [my middle name] was a curse. But it’s a blessing too,” he says. Either way, Natia has found ways to cope with an impoverished upbringing and stretches of homelessness. “It’s the music. I just keep pushing, pushing, pushing.”

If Natia’s debut album, 10K Hours, released last Friday, is any indication, then he’s been pushing in all the right ways. At just 24 years old, Natia is already 12 years deep in his rhyme game and boasting an LP that announces his years of practice — even if he did start off, as he confesses, claiming Eminem’s bars as his own.

Dark, ironic rhymes melded with a nonchalant, laid-back flow make this week’s TIDAL Rising artist the lovable outcast we’ve been waiting for and 10K Hours a perfectly off-beat summer soundtrack. This week, we’ll be rolling out more from Natia, but in the meantime, we suggest you get familiar with his twisted, no-fucks attitude and the and the music borne from another breed of Happy.

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